om the bark of trees.
Nature, giving with both hands, was repaid with an usury of poetry and
song; and these happy people, children forever at heart, well mannered,
gay, and instinct with an untamed nobility, bore themselves with the
grace of those whom the gods loved.

"As like as not he is watching us now from somewhere up there," said the
captain, sweeping the summits with his glass.

"I doubt it, sir," returned Mr. Francis. "It's my conviction he isn't a
cable's length behind the village."

"Did you offer the reward?" asked the captain.

The first lieutenant looked embarrassed.

"I told you to offer fifty pounds," said the captain tartly.

"I ventured to raise it to a hundred, sir," said Mr. Francis. "We talked
it over in the wardroom, and we thought we wouldn't risk the boy for a
matter of a few pounds between us."

"I wonder if the mess would have done the same for _me_?" observed the
captain.

"We hardly look forward to your putting yourself in that position, sir,"
said Mr. Francis.

"No, by God!" said the captain. "When I quit her Majesty's service it
will be neither for pique nor for love."

"No, indeed, sir," agreed the first lieutenant.

"I've had my follies, too, Mr. Francis," said the captain. "Every man
who is worth anything has some time or other made a fool of himself
about a woman. I don't pretend to be better than my neighbors. I can't
forget I was once young myself."

"I'm afraid even a hundred pounds isn't going to fetch him," said Mr.
Francis. "I could see it in the king's eyes he meant to keep the boy."

"The lady in the case is the king's sister, I suppose--" said the
captain, "that tall slip of a girl who was always making such
sheep's-eyes at Jack. Gad! I don't wonder he preferred a bower in Eden
with her to the steerage of a man-of-war and a pack of young devils
incarnate! Who knows what might not have happened if she had made
sheep's-eyes at me, Mr. Francis!"

"Very true, sir, very true," returned Mr. Francis, who had no sense of
humor.

"She's about the sweetest thing I ever saw," went on the captain.

The two men laughed.

"I hope to goodness he'll be the only one," said Mr. Francis. "The fact
is, the whole ship's in love; even the lower deck is off its feed; the
boatswain says they're messing up the rigging with true-lovers' knots,
and I'm told the marines are writing poetry."

"Ah, if it had been anyone but him!" exclaimed the captain.

"It's horrible to call him a